Gears
by Yours.Truly.Monochrome
Summary: A prophecy speaks of the rise of a Fifth Dragon, who will break the balance of the world. Someone who, if allowed to live, will follow the path of Evil and cause the world to fall in 10 000 years of darkness. A strange girl is the epicenter of the storm. This is a story of destiny, sweet and bitter logic, and chocolate cookies above all else. Everything else was just the prologue.
1. Prologue

Author's note: This is the result of a sudden need to write, as well as several days of re-watching Xiaolin Showdown. Enjoy.

_The dark is old and patient._

_It remembers its own peaceful non-existence, 'before' (if such concept would have been applicable) the universe sprouted like the quantic equivalent of a furuncle on the Nothingness's metaphoric ass, and it became the latest trend to say that things happen before and after, here or there. A basic energy-rich blob tight-laced in ten dimensions – three for space, one for time, and the rest belonging exclusively to brilliant nerds like Jack Spicer, because nobody else wanted them – definitely not a singular event, but a relatively stable one still._

_The dark is free. Anything and nothing can exist in it, from the monster under the bed to the "Harry Potter" book you want to smack it with. That's why light, or knowledge for that matter, means restricting possibilities – deducting order from chaos. That's why universes amuse the surrounding darkness so much. Compared with it, they're ridiculously poor event-wise, because by being they killed a lot of possibilities of what they might have been. Accepting their constraints is like subjecting oneself to the rules of a game._

_The 'universes' are little more than viruses, pieces of self-propagating information. But in this game, the dark is a hell of a hacker. And like a proper hacker, it is everywhere. Barely a few nanoseconds passed before the hot particle soup in our universe had cooled enough to allow it to seep through. And since then it never left. It is in the shadow sewn to your soles and under the tissues of your skin. It is in the empty space between your atoms, and it makes most of the volume of the atoms themselves._

_The matter cooled. Particles moved slower and slower, from plasma eventually forming gases, liquids and solids. They formed increasingly complex configurations, including ones that could run around with swords and believe that the world is only made of earth, water, air and fire. The dark did not contradict them. It only figuratively sighed, and executed the mystical equivalent of rising an eyebrow._

**_"I want a lawyer"_**

**"Yeah, well, not bad for a start"** declared Jack Spicer, in a tone that not very subtly suggested, for anyone but his innocent listener, that he, evil boy genius, could have done much better than that. **"I'm rather fond of the mention of my name in the first paragraph, although – how should I say it? – the words 'brilliant nerd' just don't sound evil enough. What would you say about writing, oh, I know, 'Brilliant Evil Boy Genius' instead? With capital letters, of course?"**

He was anxious like a child on Christmas morning, fidgeting with his trademark spiral goggles, shifting in his chair, gesturing. For the teenager girl sitting opposite to him, the exuberance of the red-haired boy was simply overwhelming. She nervously fidgeted and pushed back her glasses. In the thinking pause that followed, both of them simultaneously extended a hand towards the cookie plate on the table, their right hand to be precise. As satisfied, chocolaty crunches could be heard from one side of the room, the girl's slender fingers clenched on her little sweet. Her eyes, superficially fixed on the polished mahogany table, seemed in the same time deeper and blanker that one would have thought possible. The eyes of an idiot, some said – not that Jack Spicer would ever utter that, not even in the darkest core of his rotten evil mind. He carefully observed her angular, although not unpleasant face, knowing for a fact that she will never dare to look back. He stared in her eyes, so disturbingly alike his own, imagining that he could watch the gears spinning.

**"No"** the girl uttered, so suddenly and certain, that its effect on Jack could only be compared with a 10 000 W laser beam hitting a helium balloon. With his body limp and head fallen on the table, the antagonist of the Xiaolin monks theatrically murmured **"Backstab"**, as his interlocutor continued: **"I mean, it does seem a bit...odd. Now that you mentioned it, I find 'Jack Spicer, Evil Emperor of Darkness' to be a more fitting replace- oh, I apologize, that is most certainly wrong."**

Jack's eyes lit up, as he very quickly replied: **"I love that"**. Straightening his back, he decided to go for a humorous scolding pose: **"But you're doing it wrong! You have to say it like this – JACK SPICER, EVIL EMPEROR OF DARKNESS!"**

Well, he could at least have a career in theatre if evil world conquest lost its shine one day.

She smiled awkwardly and covered her mouth. **"Quite adequate. I'll underline the accentuated syllables to specify the pronunciation. Let me edit...like this, is it all right?"** After scribbling something on her notebook, she turned it towards Jack.** "It's all right now?"**

Symbols. Of 'outside', 'window', 'round', 'yellow', 'kid', 'question mark', 'friend'. With the proper grammar, of course.

Jack Spicer's sight was so heavy it probably sunk through the crust of Earth, all the way to China to the temple of those Xiaolin losers. One of his eyebrows twitched. In normal circumstances he would have called for his Jackbots. And/or let out a girly scream and/or an evil laugh. It's not that his companion would have been bothered by it, hey, she didn't mind his Jackbots, evil laughs and girly screams. But sometimes even an evil mastermind has to work undercover, even if it makes the artistic core in his brain swell painfully with all ideas left unexpressed.

As he headed towards the window, the girl watched him from above a cup of tea. Studying him like a puzzle. He opened the windows widely, with mechanical movements. The bruises from his last encounter with the Xiaolin monks hadn't yet healed – man, could those guys never take it easy on him? He was Jack Evil Spicer, not some kind of brainless brawler.

**"Okay, Omi, I know you're here"**

There was no one there. Just a tree, stars, and two Jackbots patrolling in the distance. He'd have to update their sensors – quite the unusual task, considering that normally his bots were destroyed almost as fast as he built them. Now where were those guys?

**"Is everything all right, Jack?"** repeated the girl with no inflexion in her voice. He breathed in, this wasn't their style. No, the goodie-two-shoes wouldn't have just busted into his lair at bloody 1 in the morning to steal Shen-Gong-Wu, unless he had stolen them first. He scratched his head. Wait, which Shen-Gong-Wu did he still have? Where did he put that list? Oh – why should he bother – there was only the Monkey Staff left.

A burning pain surged through his back, coiled around his spine and imploded inside his 170-IQ cranium. It felt as intense and swift as a bullet to the brain, not that he knew from experience - despite all those nights spent trembling under a blanket imagining worst-case scenarios after his deals with Pandabubba. Hanging around with a mob boss - that was certainly something didn't want to repeat in the future. Not good for his ego to stay around someone with so puny ambitions.

Surprised, he realized that this one of the very few moments in his life when he was too terrified to actually say anything. Then the logical part of his mind disconnected for a moment from the ruckus and reasoned that if he had the neural space to think that, then perhaps he should already go back to being himself. A high-pitched scream was about to leave his mouth, when he realized that he had leaned out of the window, and that the ground was no longer where it's supposed to be. It was above his head, which seemed to multiply his fear. Jack finally let out a scream and tried to grab the edge of a window. Unfortunately, he didn't succeed. Instead, his hand grasped a thin, invisible fabric, which stretched only to reveal the well known red and black of a Xiaolin's clothing.

Preceded by some ambiguous sounds signifying lack of equilibrium, both Jack and the intruder, as well as the invisibility-granting Shroud of Shadows Shen-Gong-Wu, fell to the ground. Back in the living room, the mysterious girl was calmly sipping her tea, observing the moving circles at the surface of the liquid. She tried to correlate their fascinating wavelike movement with elements like the aromatic, almost spicy steam tickling her nostrils, and with the warmth of the cup. The china was too hot, to the point where most other people would have expressed this in a very loud manner and allow it to fall. But it didn't seem to disturb the girl. She wondered what Jack would think of her calculations, question which eventually brought to her attention the fact that he was no longer present. As she looked at the conclusion in her mind, as cautious as a cannibal studying a stalk of celery, a familiar voice shouted:

**"Don't worry! I think this rose bush stopped my fall...Dude, GET OFF ME! JACKBOTS, ATTACK!"**

The erratic noise of broken machinery which followed bothered the girl. It was irregular, lacked a proper logic which could be transposed into a formula and repeated. She sighed, in the same time in which Jack audibly whispered "Mommy!". Her cup of tea would surely prove more interesting – the heat transfer had already altered her equations, and she was looking for a way to deal with it. Meanwhile, in the semi-obscurity under the window:

**"Jack Spicer! Prepare for a humiliating defeat!"** a voice shouted, then continued thoughtfully: **"Although I believe that it would be most difficult for us to humiliate you further, given your current attire"**

**"What-? Hey, don't mess with my PJs. They have skulls on them! I mean...Ha! Fell right into my trap! I challenge you to a Xiaolin Showdown!"**

**"Have you hit your head or somethin', Spicer? Earlier you stared outside like a calf at a new gate"**

_'Oh, thanks for noticing, hat-brain'_ replied Jack's disdainful thought._ 'And I assume you four beating me down just for fun after already winning the Mikado Arm had nothing to do with it.'_ The pain was gone, only a strange burning sensation left, like a radioactive wave._ 'Perhaps I should get an X-ray... It's not good for Evil if my vertebrae get out of place. I guess that's what it was'_ However, out loud he said only:

**"Shut up. Both me and chrome-dome are touching the Shen-Gong-Wu, right? That's a Xiaolin Showdown for you."**

**"Fine! The game will be Truth or Lies! My Mantis Flip Coin against your... wait, which Wu do you have left?"**

After an embarrassing silence which stretched like a gum on the sole of an expensive shoe, Jack admitted:

**"At this very moment in time, none"** It's not like he had time to go get the Monkey Staff from the vault.

**"Then you can't challenge Omi to a Showdown"** pointed out Kimiko, the Japanese fashionista. **"So I guess we win by default"**

**"Why don't we ask the reptile about that?"** quickly said the evil-doer, throwing a glance in Dojo's direction.

**"Reptile?!"** replied the pocket-sized dragon, infuriated. He was prepared to let out more harsh words, but unexpectedly, something from Spicer's gaze stopped him. It looked...imploring? Imperceptibly shaking his head, thinking that he was going crazy due to lack of sleep, the dragon of the Xiaolin Temple took out from thin air the larger-than-life tome of rules and regulations for Xiaolin Showdowns, put on a pair of round glasses, and started to leaf through the it.

**"Ahem...According to the original Rules written by Grandmaster Dashi himself, there cannot be a Xiaolin Showdown without a wager."**

As the monks rejoiced, Jack blinked very quickly. His red eyes had become watery – allergies, you know. He was allergic to losing. Dojo Kanojo Cho coughed, and continued:

**"...however, there can be what's called a basic Showdown, in which the two combatant parts wager non-material entities."**

**"Erm...translate from officialese, please?"** commented the Fire Dragon, Kimiko.

**"Like a challenge, a bet, a dare. I remember when Dashi lost one of these"** Dojo explained thoughtfully, then started to shake uncontrollably. **"They're pretty dangerous things...He had to...no, I can't say it, too horrible!"**

**"What is it, Dojo? Say it! How bad can it be?"** Kimiko looked at the dragon with a strange fascination.** "Did he have to eat a bug?"**

**"Did he have to let himself eaten by a giant bug?"** imaginatively suggested Jack.

**"Perhaps he had to clean the pig-shed for a whole year?"** added Clay.

**"How foolish you are! We are talking about Grandmaster Dashi here!" interrupted Omi, irritated. "He wouldn't bet on such small things! I imagine that his enemies tortured him in painful and unimaginable ways!"**

**"No, no, no and NO!"** shouted Dojo. **"If it were just that..."** He was still shivering, but managed to utter the following words. **"He had to take out Wuya to dinner, and give her a good-night kiss"**

Kimiko chuckled. Jack laughed loudly and fell back in the rose bush. Omi and Clay just looked disturbed. Raimundo, as Jack couldn't stop but notice, was not there, which was clearly an improvement to his usual self.

**"I assume she must've been a fine young lady 1500 years ago, but I still don't like the idea of arranged dates"** the cowboy reasoned.

**"Truly a most terrifying ordeal"** agreed Omi.

**"Yeah, not fair, I could never convince Wuya to give ME a good-night kiss"** spoke the red-haired.** "...WHAT?"**

**"Point is, watch out what you wager, kids"** said Dojo.

**"Blah, blah blah."** Jack Spicer's eyes narrowed. **"If I win, I get the Shroud of Shadows and you leave me in peace at least for several weeks"**

**"But if we win, we take the Shroud AND free the Dragon of Darkness"** counterattacked Omi.

**"Yeah, whatever!"** absently replied the evil boy genius, while inwardly putting on a party hat and starting an early celebration. Those fools! They couldn't get a Shen-Gong-Wu which he didn't have, could they? He almost wanted to lose on purpose, just for the chance to see their faces.

Almost. Besides, he should try to finish this as soon as possible. It was rude of an evil genius to leave his favorite evil scientist waiting, wasn't it? As those thoughts passed through the redhead's mind, the glowing Wu escaped their grasp, and the scenery began to change...

**"Gong Yi Tanpai!"**

****A/N: I hope there's just enough confusion, but not TOO much. To quote somebody famous - I trust I make myself obscure.


	2. 1: The Laughingstock of Evil

_Author's note: This chapter was supposed to be the showdown, but I got too carried away with the history of the Dragon of Darkness. Hope it's not too bad._

Somewhere, inside a napping volcano scooped on the inside like an upside-down raspberry ice-cream cone of magma, another prince of darkness was in his lair, training.

Or should we say – THE Prince of Darkness – Chase Young, the half-dragon, 1500-year-old young man, most powerful martial artist in the world, as smug as the devil himself. Most evil creature alive, if we don't count a certain oversized vegetable. _That_ bean almost made the Heylin dragon himself become a vegetarian, by instilling in him a deep hatred for all plants and their wrong evolutionary choices.

Certainly the most evil humanoid being alive, until about five minutes ago.

Bleeding from several deep gashes, another of his enslaved tiger warriors smashed into the wall of the training room, like a stuffed toy hit with a baseball bat. It fell to the floor, panting heavily, too injured to move, too weakened to even land with the customary feline grace. Its amber eyes watched in a haze a pair of metal boots heading towards it, the sensitive ears twitching at every step. Their master was not one to take failures lightly, and his sudden burst of anger made one question his chances of survival. Hmpf – what a life. Born in poverty on an insignificant island of the Pacific, entering the warrior's caste because he didn't want to be stuck sculpting giant rock faces for life, then sworn into serving this immortal maniac for eternity. It almost felt...ironic. The feline's eyes lit up threateningly as Chase approached, a growl escaping its throat. Slave or not, he was not going to go down without a fight. The dragon's hand, covered by a metallic glove, touched his head with the certainty of a guillotine. It moved between the tiger's ears, stroking him.

**"Not bad"** the voice mused, as cold and sharp as a monomolecular ice knife. The gesture, the tiger warrior knew well, meant _'You belong to me'_. Like the medieval kind of dragon, Chase Young was highly possessive. But not in the avaricious kind of way – of what use would money be to someone who already had immortal life, after all? No, Chase Young was possessive of people. He wanted their minds, their souls. He wanted the best warriors in the world, and he wanted their complete and unshakeable obedience. The warrior from the island of Rapa Nui wondered for a moment if there'll be a day when Chase's strength and silver tongue will fail to serve his purpose anymore. Then the hand moved down, catching the beast from the skin of its neck and raising it in the air, as if it were a newborn kitten.

**"Not good enough, though"** added Chase, swung his arm and threw the feline to the other side of the room. It would have smashed into the door, had it not been open; but this way, it flew headfirst through the exit, was dodged by a surprised and very irritated Heylin witch, and eventually came to a stop after sliding in circles on the marble floor.

**"Chase, I would just love to sit around and watch you play with your kittens, but there are more pressing problems at hand"** sneered the sorceress.

**"Why the haste, Wuya?"** smirked the man. Calmly, he grabbed a towel from a cautious snow leopard and rubbed his face and hair of sweat, while walking towards the door. **"By the way, in your place I would take care who do I call...kittens"**

As Chase's unlucky punch bag for that day painfully leapt away with most bones and dignity intact, what seemed to be the rest of his Jungle Cats surrounded the red-haired witch from a safe, yet uncomfortable distance. Inwardly mumbling something about fur jackets and poachers, the woman stormed behind Chase like a raging Fury. So undignified, if she thought about it...

**"Dragon of Darkness. Awoken."** She telegraphically informed him and proudly stopped walking, clearly expecting a more surprised remarked than the simple, bored: **"Yes. I took notice of that fact."**

**"Oh, you did?!"** The tattooed face of the witch twisted in pure irritation. **"Then you must know what it means. This is not like the kiddy games you play with the Xiaolin...The prophecy..."**

Chase slowly turned around, piercing her green eyes with a golden gaze. **"Wuya...I would appreciate if you stopped doubting my intellectual capacities. By the way, are you familiar with the term 'self-fulfilling prophecy'?"**

Wuya knew better than to answer that.

**"I would advise you to stop following me around like a fangirl, but perhaps you are curious enough to know what my loyal servants may do to a powerless witch"**

Leaving the witch fuming, the warlord went to take a shower. As drops of cold water fell from his hair, his breathing resembled a sigh. He had gone overboard during training that day, ever since he sensed the comeback of the Dark Dragon. As if he could ignore it – it felt like a hit to the face with a frying pan; anyone on the planet with more chi than a teaspoon must have sensed it. So inconsiderate; such a lack of style for someone supposed to be the new vessel of the most complex element. But then again, this so-called dragon was an ancient bloodstained legend that was darker than black. It was what Heylin witch mothers would threaten little girl Heylin witches with, before the side of 'good' basically drove them extinct. To help you get an idea, if the Heylin side would be represented by the toxic sewage of a nuclear weapon factory, then the Dragon of Darkness would be one of those nightmarish mutant creatures who live in its darkest depths. It was the difference between plain dark and antimatter.

But Chase knew something which Wuya didn't, and that was that the Dragon of Darkness was the laughingstock of Evil.

**"Has this happened before, Chase?"** Wuya asked in a slightly seductive tone as Chase entered his throne room several minutes later, the tone she instinctively used when she wanted something from him._ 'Worse than a child crying for sweets'_ thought the warlord, displeased.

**"I must admit that the question rises above your usual mediocrity, Wuya. Was it the all-seeing Eye which gave it away?"**

**"Obviously, it's not working. And you knew it, because you knew what to expect. Which means this is probably not the first time the Dragon of Darkenss awakens. Also, the ceiling is broken."**

The ceiling? Chase Young stared above his head. He truly hoped the damage was minor, because the enchanted ceiling which looked like a window to the sky was one of his favorite items in the caste. That very morning, he had set it to show a rainy day. Now it looked like something taken out of a computer screen – a nonsensical clash of black and white pixels, static noise. The funny thing was, he had programmed the respective charm in a way that had nothing to do with computers, so that image should have never happened.

**"So unspeakably rude."** He stated simply.** "You'd better not have anything to do with this, witch."**

**"Hey, that's how I found it!"** said Wuya, quickly gesturing the decline of any responsibility. **"I told you it's serious, Chase. Can't imagine what stopped it the last time, but I'm glad I wasn't around."**

Chase's thin lips twitched. For a few seconds he seemed to be silently suffocating, but then a few odd sounds were forced through his nostrils, and before he knew it, the evil warlord was chuckling loudly enough to make his Jungle Cats blink.

**"Wuya, you have been locked in a puzzle box for 15 hundred years. In this time, the 'dragon' which scares those pink panties off you attempted to come back at least thirteen times, and was met every time with utter defeat. Most of the time, the Xiaolins didn't even have to interfere. It has become the bad joke of the Heylin side, I am afraid, even more so than Spicer. The kind which always messes up the pun."**

**"What do you mean? That's impossible!"** exclaimed the fiery-haired woman. **"Not even Dashi managed to defeat..."**

**"Oh, but it manages quite well not to need any help with being defeated"** smirked Chase. He summoned the magical eyeball, but all that could be seen was static noise.** "Interesting. This incarnation seems to be a particular powerful one, but we should not get our hopes up. While we wait, I shall tell you a story..."**

**"Because of Master Monk Guan and the pact for immortality he made with the Dragon of Darkness, I used to be quite adamant about finding her new incarnation. I thought I could convince the new one to...eh...correct that little mistake. But as time passed, her story changed from legend into myth and my research went nowhere. I realized that I was wasting my time when I was listening to a fortune teller's gibberish about the 'core of darkness' being born from a virgin mother and so on. I gave up. About a decade later, a curious pulse of Heylin energy somewhere in India caught my attention. The one emitting it was a young female, almost a teenager. She was of the lowest caste – people could not as much step on her shadow without being defiled. Her family had banished her after almost beating her to death, for showing signs of pregnancy and stubbornly crying that she cannot explain it, for she had not even ever touched a man. I understood what it was all about, took care of her, brought her a medic. But as days passed she became weaker and weaker, and it was soon obvious she couldn't carry the pregnancy to term. When it already certain that the woman will die, the doctor cut her up so he could at least save the child" At that point, the Heylin's dragon voice felt a bit hoarse, as if his mouth had dried. "It was not a child. I didn't know what it was until about a millennium later, but it was monstrous. It was dead and yet alive, a pulsating mass of tissues without a heart and a brain, but still clinging to life until it was incinerated. Nowadays, one would call it 'cancer'. It was the first sign I had that the oh-almighty-Prophecy was not going according to plan. But I still believed it could be a mistake of Fate.**

**Eventually I realized that the Prophecy was completely right. 'If the Dragon of Darkness is allowed to live', it said, but it seemed that it could not keep itself alive. The recurring 'pattern of darkness' was too corrupted for any living being to endure. I said thirteen incarnations, but who knows how many died before showing the slightest hint of their powers? All of them were broken in one way or another: mind, body and soul. Idiotic, handicapped, unnatural. There was a paranoid puppet-emperor of China with the obsession of torturing people; a moronic giant; a suicidal genius poet; a London prostitute, last victim of Jack the Ripper – who was in fact a nightmare born from her own powers. Most were killed out of fear by the ones around them. Others committed suicide. Two were defeated by the Xiaolin, and one was a pawn I had to get rid of for being too stupid to follow instructions. None of them lived to adulthood. None of them learned to control their powers. Now do you understand my point of view, Wuya?"**

The woman kept silent for a minute. **"It's almost a pity, really. Something so strong turned into a string of perfect failures...but then again, even the Dragon of Darkness from our time wasn't exactly normal. At least let's see how this one looks"**

Chase Young poked the magical eyeball with a finger. It blinked a few times, twitched a little, and then the image cleared. It showed a teenage girl, dressed in something that looked like a cross between a ninja outfit and pajamas. The clothes hanged loose, and not only because of design. She was thin almost to the point of looking unhealthy, with stick-like limbs and slender fingers that a piano player would have killed for. In fact, she looked almost too weak to be cute. Under her skin, her veins seemed bluish cracks in a marble block of the purest white. Her lips were curved into an awkward smile. Her hair seemed a bunch of flames neatly arranged into a pixie cut. Her eyes were red, but not only because of sleepiness – their irises were like two puddles of frozen venous blood. And most unusual, their expression was something out of this world.

**"Familiar, isn't it?"**

_Author's note: Rapa Nui, or Easter Island, is an island somewhere in the Pacific famous for giant rock faces._

_Also, I had to find a reason for Master Monk Guan being immortal, right?_


End file.
